


No Rest for the Wicked

by gloatingraccoon



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, Canon Compliant, F/M, Friendship, Homestuck Shipping World Cup, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Pre-Sburb/Sgrub, Rivalry, Unrequited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-25
Updated: 2013-07-25
Packaged: 2017-12-21 08:40:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/898235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloatingraccoon/pseuds/gloatingraccoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything about Vriska is sharp and jagged and deadly and irredeemably irresistible. She's the only thing that scares you and the one you can't stay away from. You hate her like the storm hates the sea and you just keep coming back for more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Rest for the Wicked

**Author's Note:**

> HSWC Bonus Round 4 fill, based on the following playlist prompt by DW user anotherdirkstrider:  
> \- Mariner's Revenge Song, by the Decemberists  
> \- No Rest for the Wicked, by Cage the Elephant  
> \- Combat Baby, by Metric

I.  
  
Everything about Vriska is sharp and jagged and deadly and irredeemably irresistible. She’s the candle to the moths fluttering in your stomach, she’s like choking on coffee, like dancing on broken ice, like drinking wine from a chipped glass. She’s the only thing that scares you and the one you can’t stay away from. She doesn’t even have to try to get under your skin.

She’s as tall as you, a lanky, knotty mess of lean muscle and bones that grew too long, unruly hair and tacky cerulean makeup and way too many sharp fangs - and she never, ever shuts the damn fuck up. There is no grace or elegance to her style: she just hacks and slashes her way past her opponents, a ragged cackle and a whirlwind of lethal, brutal disregard of anything but herself, the fluorite octet dancing between her fingers as a fistful of stars.  
  
One night she catches you with your guard down and Ahab’s Crosshairs slips off your grip, clattering away down the deck. You end up slammed against the ship’s railing, the tip of her sword against your throat. You can’t reach for the knife at your belt without her noticing and gutting you before you get ideas. You swallow, sweat beading on your brow, and you know she can see the fear in your eyes. You know because she likes it. She grins and eyes you over like a new plaything, or maybe just a piece of meat. You’ve heard what she makes of her prisoners. Her blade slowly moves up and you go stiff as the cool metal brushes a stray lock of hair away from your forehead.  
  
"You know, I could finally give you a reason to use that stupid name you like so much… Dualscar," she says, her grin only growing wider as you frown. “But that would be boring, wouldn’t it? Nah, I think it’s time for a break."  
  
"What do you mean?" you say, and your voice sounds a tad too unsteady for your liking. She still isn’t moving her blade away.  
  
"I mean I’ve seen what you do. You need lusi, don’t you? You need an awful lot of them. No wonder they call you Orphaner. Well, everybody knows an orphan is dead meat walking, and it would be such a shame to let it go to waste. Don’t get me wrong, all that cat-and-mouse racing and competing was fun and all, but if we join forces, we’re going to be unstoppable. So here’s the deal. We always raid together, you get the lusi, I get the kids. We duel over everything else, of course."  
  
"Duel?" You grit your teeth. “Do you even know what that is? You’ve never played by the rules in your whole life!"  
  
She only looks surprised for a moment, before snorting a scoffing laugh.  
  
"So what? Did you expect me to make it easy for you?" She rolls her eyes. “Maybe you just don’t have the guts for this game."  
  
She draws her sword back and as you see your opening, you go for it. In a quick flick of your wrist you draw the dagger at your belt as your last defense against the strike that’s surely coming - only it never comes. With an icy screech of metal on metal her sword blocks your blade and tosses it off your hand. You curse under your breath, but you’re taken by surprise when she fists a hand in your scarf to draw you close and pushes her forehead against yours, her cheeks flushed a faint blue and her eyes alight with a fire you’ve never seen before. Blood rushes fast to your head and suddenly your whole world falls still and silent, there’s nothing around you but the ringing in your ears and her breath mixing with yours and the magnetic bite of one and seven pupils diving straight into yours.  
  
"Maybe you do have some guts, after all," she breathes on your mouth, then she tugs at your scarf, and next thing you know, she’s kissing you.  
  


* * *

  
II.

Vriska kisses like she fights, brutal, sloppy, selfish and powerful. Claws rake up under your hair, fangs sink in your lip, and you taste blood on your tongue. You don’t know if it’s yours or hers, and you don’t give a shit. Nobody ever kisses you like this. Nobody makes you feel this wanted.

It’s all too soon when she snaps off your neck the locket you had almost thought you’d won, and shoves you away with a manic grin to disappear with her loot. 

Your lips are sticky and sweet with her lipstick, and it’s downright disgusting. You need to kiss her again.

* * *

  
III.

When Vriska is by your side, the ocean is your plaything and blood paints it like a rainbow in the flash of the storm. You don’t count the lusi or the campaigns anymore, you just wait for the moment when the hunt is over and it’s only you and her and the challenge. She never plays by the rules, but you never expect her to do it, so you have nobody but yourself to blame when she beats you. You hate her like the storm hates the sea and you just keep coming back for more. You two were hatched for this.

Feferi keeps patching you up and telling you to rest, but she knows as well as you do that you can’t. She knows you hunt because it’s in your blood, because nothing makes you feel more alive than that, and helping her feed her lusus is only the bright side of the coin. In fact, you’re pretty sure this is the real reason why she asked you to do it: because that way she could keep you focused, give you a reason to hunt that had rules and boundaries, so that you could become a sharp shooter instead of an uncontrollable wild card. You tell her it’s your privilege as her moirail to share her burden. You don’t tell her how stupidly happy it makes you to see her smile at that, or how desperately red you are for her, because simply admitting it to yourself is embarrassing enough.

* * *

  
IV.

One night you’re waiting for Vriska, and she doesn’t come. You don’t hear from her for a while, not even on Trollian, and if you’re sort of flattered at the start, thinking it’s part of one of her schemes to get you riled up, by the end of it you’re getting embarrassingly worried.

When she’s back, she’s lost one arm and one eye and she acts like it’s no big deal. But that’s the problem with Vriska: she’s the kind of liar that actually believes the shit she says.

In a way, she’s right. Equius did a brilliant job with her prosthesis, and it’s not like she needs two arms and two eyes to be just as deadly as before, or to keep challenging you and kicking your ass, as she repeatedly demonstrates. But you see it. You see it in the way she curses and loses her temper so much more now, especially when she rolls her dice, and her dice don’t seem eager to cooperate. You see it when one night she takes an eight ball from her pocket only to smash it against the railing with a frustrated yell, and she promptly seems to relax. She catches you staring, and as her only eye turns to a slit, you swallow. Because she’s not grinning anymore. 

You know something changed, and you know she won’t talk about it, and you don’t like it.

* * *

V.

CA: vvris  
CA: hey  
CA: so i wwas thinkin wwe go raid ahabs covve later howw about it  
CA: ivve seen some traffic around there i think theres a big group a kids havving their owwn sorry wwiggler campaign or somethin  
CA: thats just wwhat wwe need right  
CA: howw about i race you there tonight   
CA: howw does that sound  
CA: hm  
CA: you knoww unless youre scared right  
CA: because wwe both knoww the vvictorious is so much better than the spinneret for quick maneuvverin in tight places  
CA: oh yeah i knoww the truth hurts it alwways does  
CA: youre scared youre gonna crash your big fat precious monster ship on the rocky horror maritime showw that is ahabs covve  
CA: wwhile im gonna get all that swweet loot wwith my lame small ship wwhich by the wway is quick an nimble as fuck an wwe both knoww it  
CA: because i wwon it from you fair an square mindfang so guess wwhat youre gonna suck it  
CA: a mans gotta do wwhat a mans gotta do i guess an wwhat i gotta do is plunder all that awwesome loot all by myself  
CA: its a dirty job but someone has to do it  
CA: you knoww i might be inclined to share though if only in the name of our rivvalry  
CA: as long as you admit youre scared a course  
CA: uh  
CA: vvris  
CA: are you evven there  
CA: it says youre online  
CA: but wwhatevver youre probably cryin an feelin miserable for bein too scared to take such an awwesome challenge  
CA: and also keep up wwith your owwn challenges because here are twwo lousy wwords that should be familiar to you  
CA: doomsday devvice  
CA: howw about that hm   
CA: you dropped the gauntlet there you said youd wwork on it an it wwas gonna bloww my mind or somethin  
CA: an wwhat came of it nothin a course  
CA: because someone here seriously ovverestimated their abilities as per fuckin usual an that sure isnt me  
CA: vvris  
CA: hey  
CA: fuck i cant believve this  
CA: ok havve it your wway  
CA: im gonna havve a blast of a hunt tonight its not like i need you or anythin

* * *

VI.

CG: LISTEN, DUDE. YOU KNOW I’M ALL FOR HARD FEELINGS AND GOOD, HEALTHY CALIGINOUS RELATIONSHIPS. BUT THE KEY WORD HERE IS HEALTHY. NOT A WORD I WOULD USE TO DESCRIBE SPIDERBITCH, THAT’S FOR SURE.  
CG: SO DON’T EXPECT ME TO MOURN THE END OF YOUR BLACK QUADRANT AS IF YOU WERE MISSING OUT ON THE KISMESISSITUDE OF A LIFETIME BECAUSE QUITE FRANKLY, SHE’S JUST DOING YOU A FAVOUR.  
CG: SERIOUSLY, ERIDAN, SHE’S MESSED UP. WE TALKED ABOUT THIS.  
CA: yeah kar but shes not evven talkin to me anymore  
CA: i think she blocked me or somethin  
CA: i knoww she hated me kar hated me in a good wway  
CG: AS YOU’VE ALREADY ENUNCIATED IN THE PAST, IN MUCH MORE PHYSICAL DETAIL THAT I EVER WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT, THANK YOU VERY MUCH.  
CG: THINK OF IT LIKE THIS. YOU KNOW HOW THERE ARE SOME WEIRD TROLLS WHO DON’T SEEM TO HATE ANYBODY?  
CA: you mean like fef  
CG: I WAS THINKING OF TAVROS, BUT FEFERI IS A GOOD EXAMPLE TOO, THERE YOU GO.  
CG: AT THE OPPOSITE END YOU HAVE TROLLS LIKE SPIDERBITCH. I’M HERE RACKING MY SPONGES OVER THIS, BUT I DON’T THINK SHE HAS MUCH TO GIVE IN THE WAY OF PITY. SHE JUST HATES.  
CG: LIKE WHEN YOU GET A SICK GAME GRUB. YOU PLUG IT IN, YOU WANT TO START PLAYING, BUT THE GAME WON’T HATCH. YOU JUST GET A CONTINUOUS REPEAT OF THE STUPID FUCKING LOADING SCREEN BECAUSE IT’S ALL THE POOR GRUB CAN DO.  
CG: SO SHE HATES PEOPLE BECAUSE IT’S HER DEFAULT RESPONSE TO THEM.  
CA: so its not like i wwas anythin special to her is that wwhat youre sayin  
CG: THAT’S NOT THE POINT. THE THING IS SHE’S MESSED UP.   
CG: SHE USES PEOPLE UNTIL SHE BREAKS THEM OR SHE GETS BORED. GOOD FOR YOU THAT IT WAS THE LATTER.  
CA: kar i just  
CA: i dont think i can handle this noww  
CA: wwhat am i gonna do wwhere am i gonna find another rivvalry like that  
CA: you havvent seen her kar you dont knoww wwhat shes like nobody fights like her  
CA: wwhere am i gonna find someone like that someone wwho can pose me a real challenge  
CG: HEY, DON’T MAKE ME COME OVER THERE AND KICK YOUR DRAMA VALVE SHUT. I’M GOING TO GET YOUR SNOT ON MY SHOES AND NOBODY’S GOING TO BE HAPPY. DON’T YOU THINK I WON’T.  
CG: BUT SERIOUSLY NOW, IT SHOULDN’T REALLY BE THAT BAD. YES, I CAN BET IT SUCKS NOW, BUT GUESS WHAT?  
CG: IT’S CALLED BEING KIDS AND GROWING UP. IT HURTS LIKE A DICKENS, AND NOBODY UNDERSTANDS.  
CG: THIS LEAVING ASIDE THE FACT THAT I DON’T HAVE THE SLIGHTEST CLUE WHAT IN THE BULGEMUNCHING FUCK A DICKENS IS.  
CA: me neither  
CG: THERE YOU GO, IT CAN’T BE THAT IMPORTANT THEN.  
CG: REALLY, ERIDAN, WE’RE STILL ONLY 6 SWEEPS OLD, FOR FUCK’S SAKE. WE’RE GOING TO MESS UP AND HURT EACH OTHER, BUT IT’S NOT THE END OF THE WORLD.  
CG: YOU’RE GOING TO FIND YOURSELF A NEW KISMESIS SOON ENOUGH AND TALK MY EARSPONGES OFF ABOUT THEM, I’M SURE OF IT.  
CA: you really think so  
CA: in confidence  
CG: YEAH, WELL, COME ON. YOU CAN BE PRETTY BITTER AND HATEFUL WHEN YOU PUT YOUR MIND TO IT.  
CA: ehhh  
CA: ok thanks i guess  
CG: WHAT I WANT TO KNOW, THOUGH, IS WHY YOU’RE NOT JAMMING OVER THIS WITH YOUR MOIRAIL, WHO SHOULD BE THERE FOR THAT IN THE FIRST PLACE.  
CG: I MEAN, IT’S NOT LIKE I’M NOT FLATTERED, BECAUSE EVERYBODY KNOWS MY ADVICE IS JUST THAT AWESOME.  
CG: BUT MY LATEST LOGS ARE JUST OVERDOSING WITH VIOLET AND YOU KNOW, A TROLL JUST STARTS TO WONDER.  
CA: uhhh  
CA: yeah um  
CA: about that  
CA: theres somethin ivve been meanin to tell you  
CA: from a wwhile  
CA: about fef  
CG: OH MY GOD. PLEASE DON’T TELL ME IT’S WHAT I’M THINKING.  
CA: kar im afraid  
CA: its exactly what youre thinkin  
CG: SHIT.

* * *

VII.

Up over your head, angels roam the white hot sky like ink stains. You think of the time when the whole world was your plaything, with your best enemy by your side and your best friend to keep you in check. You think of the time when the hunt and the challenge made you feel alive.

It doesn’t matter how many angels you strike down. You still can’t feel anything.


End file.
